Crossing your fingers and hoping that you’re healthy is not a good strategy — I think we can all agree on that. When it comes to your health, ignorance is most certainly not bliss; it’s dangerous, and it’s stupid. Although getting tested (see “Testing for HIV”) may mean that you have to hear something you don’t want to hear, knowing is infinitely better than not knowing.

Similarly (although admittedly, much less life-threateningly), when it comes to the “health” of a campus, knowing your status is much, much better than not knowing. When was the last time RIT went in for a checkup? The administration’s not saying, but judging by some of their recent actions, they’re about due for another.

In the 2007 U.S. News & World Report, the percentage of alumni giving back to RIT had yet to climb out of the single digits. There’s a reason for this, RIT: Unhappy students become unhappy alumni. Although you do appear recognize the symptoms of an ailing student body, you all too frequently go about administering your treatments directly to those symptoms rather than addressing their causes. The way you handle the pathetic lack of alumni participation is a prime example of this; your naïvely ineffective attempts to raise school spirit are another.

So here’s a list of some of your three biggest ailments right now, RIT. I hope you’re paying close attention. This may sting a bit, but a dose of honesty may be just the thing to cure you.

Ailment #1: You are in the middle of a housing crisis, and seem completely unwilling to admit it. Cramming five people into a room is not a mere “reclassification” of the space; it’s a travesty. Is a five-person room really a place that you expect students to thrive in?

Prescription: Take Student Government up on their housing challenge (see “SG Update”). Once one of your own experiences how it feels to be one of the guinea pigs living in forced quints, perhaps you’ll recognize the direness of the situation, and come up with some creative solutions to address it. Solutions that don’t involve piling more bodies into rooms like cattle.

Ailment #2: The major changes in parking and transportation policies this year is infuriating a lot of students, especially those living at Park Point and in the on-campus apartments. They’re confused as to why you’ve made these changes, and you’re not doing a very good job of explaining it.

Prescription: I realize that we’re built on a swamp and that makes construction of parking garages difficult... but you should probably reconsider this option. And work on putting some more information out there to tell students why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Ailment #3: As a general rule, your communications with the student body leave much to be desired. The hugely negative reactions to both situations above could have been somewhat deflected if students had had some prior warning and an explanation.

Prescription: Make use of the media outlets on campus to introduce some more transparency into your decision-making processes. Making yourself more available to do interviews with Reporter would be a great place to start.

So there you have it. Please don’t call me in the morning. (A Letter to the Editor would be fine, though.)